This had been a napkin, from her wedding, their wedding, from the banquet or maybe it was a cateringhall she didn’t want it at but — a long story — from the table, from the very placesetting of the mensch she’d thought of as her father, zichron l’vracha as they say, when he was still alive and married himself to her mother: once white (the tablecloths had been offblue, as if ordered prestained, used or rented), this unwashed, neverwashed Rag’s unmentionable as much say as her underwear’s sexy or not, it’s a secret; at most she shakes it out outside, or now in winter off either the screenedin or windowed porches; how she can’t ever wash it, mustn’t, she needs it like this, needs the history, the past and its record of stains and grains — if it were to be found, she thinks it would turn her, sully reputationwise, ruin the marriage, though who would find it, Wanda, and then know what to do with it once found and, nu, why would that or they matter, why should they? The Rag’s soakedup the seas, the sevenfold oceans, encrusted with everything spilled and stained until the stains they aren’t stains, grains or seeds or the cancel of blackmail — they’re the Rag itself, its weep into form. It’s shvitzsoaked, stinks of spoiled milk and meat together — it’s scandalous, isn’t it? when they’d first moved in — after lawschool, even after loans paidoff, through ten years of their runging up the ladder — it’d hung on the oven, that was years ago, two stoves in the past; now it’s stained with everything since, thinking, it’s tough even to think about: it’s bloodcaked in seven species’, it’d wiped up muddy footprints from the tile floor, it’d sopped up overflows and drippings when a lid was unfastened; how she’d strain and shray for Israel who’d loosen and how some liquid would always spurt out, or, slicing a vegetable, like a head with so much between the ears, some seeds would leak all over the formica, to be wiped up always with this.
Now, the Rag’s as hard as a plate and its corners, its edges like blades, as sharp as a shard — as if a piece of the glass it’d wrapped that Israel had broken underfoot at their wedding (whose wine had been cleanedup with whatever’s around).
Hanna replaces the other towels atop, takes the top placed to do the dishes, with which to dry them, Israel’s undershirt shmatte — with it draping each object as if magic or fragile, to decide: which is a bowl and which is a plate, deep and with a stiffly high lip she’s not sure; only to scrape whatever’s been missed by the dishwasher, the machine and not Wanda, her neither — sauce stuck, a crumb caught. Holding a serving of silver, a platter, up to the light; the last to be replaced before darkness, the darkness of its appropriate drawer: she looks at her face looking at her, as if asking whose fault, misdirection; the platter’s edge a rose garland, she likes how it frames her face, which in turn frames the eyes: for a lighter brow, she tilts from; for fuller lips, she tilts toward. That stain, the remains of the afternoon, the morning’s meal ingrained: reflected at forehead, this mole made from a freckle, a kinder’s pox or the swelling of hives, must scrub it away — steelwool as if it’s been shorn from her thighs, grown between them…
Hanna replaces the knife from the floor to the sink to the towel to dry at the edge of the sink and now to its own drawer again, which she shuts; she takes a new towel from the other, adjoining, runs an edge around each tine of a servingfork, finished with the drying; until, she’ll begin a new meal, which begs a new wash.
Batya, still the lastborn though soon, soon enough, to be usurped in that position, standing awkwardly intoed, flexkneed, pudgy, and whiningly shy with her head held down to rest on a shoulder, her hands holding each other, behind her, her hands in her hands, or maybe they’re just stuck together, they’re bound — her hands are always shvitzing, they’re sticky, like stuffedup spinnerets with the webbing, the silkgum, all tangled. She’s tight in a onepiece pajama outfitted with feet, which zippers down her front as if a metallic mark for incision, her gutting — the spill of her feelings.
Her little rodent eyes say she’s left out of preparations, how that makes her feeclass="underline" excluded and Hanna, never not a mother, notices, hands her a glass to put away on her own. Batya makes it three, four steps, drops, eternity, floor and the glass shatters into they’re millions of shards, not enough hands to finger them falling: a tint to drink, a prism to sweep, under the baseboard, the pantry, the refrigerator, the islands topped in formica, shored in with grout; under the profane weekday table, under the oven the stove, the dishwasher, hard by the trash’s full bag waiting to be taken outside — flung, the glass throws the light, the outside’s last light streamed in and, too, the overhead light, all over the kitchen, glistening upon the tile, which once was white, illuminating shades she’s never previously known.
Her mother goes not forgetting today’s towels in hand to the laundryroom, for a broom, for a mop, remembering, too — not only drawers — to shut that door behind her, as Batya trips into hiding, upstairs. In the laundryroom, Hanna tosses the towels to the washingmachine. And then, begins the cycle again, to be made new again — saving the dryer for later.
Hanna sweeps the light into a pile, mops as she yells upstairs, put on your shoes! steadying the dustpan with a slipper, then the bucket coldwatered from the laundryroom’s sink, rooting around under the refridge Israel says then the freezer nextdoor to the fridge for what’s stray; she slices her hand, holds it, opens a drawer, roots for the Rag, holds the Rag to the seethe then walks upstairs to her youngest daughter calling her name, so concerned she leaves the drawer open.
And then, wending her way to her own bedroom from the room Batya shares with a sister, soon to be made that of the newborn — they’re in the process of moving Batya and Josephine out, down the hall. This is called, Acting out. This is called, Pregnant; what’s that the doctor told me again — I’ve been through this before. Despite any comfort, the tickle of a feather the tear of a pillow, the stroke of her hair a whispery word — an upheaval. Weekly, the lingering suspicion: this house is a mess. A certifiable wreck.
Though the upstairs is left in pitch — the air a modest enough gown over her skin — she knows her way, the touch of space off the walls, each give in every bum floorboard, the yield of the blue wall-to-wall. Hanna touches the door-post, the jamb, the mezuzah affixed thereupon, then kisses at the fingertip that touched and the kiss becomes a sigh as her hand’s wiped on the hem of her skirt. Her pregnancy weighs heavily; she feels with both hands at her puff, bruised with bloat, her filled wineskin of incredible ephahs and kavs, drunk with fat it feels, like she’s thirsty, hungry, too, the yen always for — breathing enormously, long and deep gulps of air’s inhouse twin.
In her room in its bathroom connecting, she runs the sink’s tap, splashes her sliced hand underneath.
Remember to shut all the drawers and the doors, to turn off the taps — her instructions.
This she must remember, too: which door is her closet — some lead into nowhere, gape into void, a walkin with no out.
She takes a white maternity dress from the drycleaner’s hanger, more offwhite she thinks as she holds it up to the just repainted wall, and, softly, with a sweep, lays it all out on her side of the bed, huge and lonely as empty — always been her side of the bed though she can’t remember when or if they’d ever decided. She’d slept on this side, it feels, even as a girl with her mother, and then alone in her twin. This side, closest to the sun’s rise and its brightening of the bathroom adjoining.
Come my beloved to greet the bride—